Thimpu: With most of the world going for digitisation of its operations, the mountain kingdom Bhutan needs political will besides money and manpower to take information communications technology (ICT) to a more broadened level benefiting the common man.

The take up of Internet and computer usage is slow in the country, though there is greater acceptance of mobile technology, with the subscriber base reaching almost 1.7 lakh since its launch in 2003.

Government and corporations accounting for most of the computers, the total number of computers in the country is between 10,000 to 12,000.

Citing the example of Hyderabad in India, where the chief minister saw an opportunity in ICT and changed things around, an IT official from the Bhutanese Department of IT (DIT) said that the right people or leaders have to drive the ICT initiative in the country.

The Information Department Director Tenzin Choeda said that the total budget for the tenth plan has increased to almost Nu 2 billion and that is the same amount that the government would be spending to develop Thimphu's urban area.

According to him the country needs the budget to make things happen and for which it needs concentrated attention from our leaders to develop ICT.

The Bhutanese government has identified a number of useful applications, which are in the process of implementation, such as the online issuance of security clearance, the agriculture marketing system to provide market rates and information, online forest clearance and land transactions.

Choeda claimed that 90 per cent of all government forms can now be downloaded from the Bhutan portal website.

The Thimphu wide area network (WAN) project to connect all organisations and agencies in Thimphu valley through high-speed optical fibre for information sharing is a major initiative of the government. The work had started two years ago and is still ongoing.

The delay was due to the long time taken by the government to approve the project. The department further said that it had to do some rectification work because the Doebum Lam construction that had destroyed many of its cables.

According to official sources, however, at present 42 organisations are benefiting from the high speed connection.

The department said that benefits of ICT are not directly visible as that of health or agriculture sector, but people need to understand that it helps in facilitating other agencies to meet their objectives.

Indicating that computer and Internet costs are high compared to the earning level of Bhutanese as one of the reason, the Director said that on the other hand, the country needs more useful local content for Bhutanese people to increasingly use computers.

Officials also said that, among the e-Governance applications, Dzongkha localisation was also important because whole messages on the computer should come out in Dzongkha if a greater impact is to be created.

The government is aiming to establish IT parks, community information centres in all 202 gewogs in the country, set up e-governance applications, implement national broadband network during the next five years and reduce Internet rates by the next year.

According to the country's DIT officials, for all this to happen, the country needs resources and, more than the resources, it needs the political will, commitment and support from all agencies.
—iGovernment Bureau